What do you do?

I wanted to post something today. Something to kind of lift my mood, take a break from the craziness. I had the best of intentions to do so.

But I sat back down at my desk this afternoon, after bouncing from one meeting to the next for 6 straight hours, and it just felt like a huge wave of stress crashed over me. My shoulders feel too heavy to lift. I ate candy to console myself which only left me with a pain in my stomach (and post-candy guilt) I feel like I have so much that I need to do, let alone things that I WANT to do, and not enough time or enough of me (often both!) to do it all.

I feel stretched so thin at the moment. Some days I feel fine about it. Others, like today, I feel sick to my stomach all day about it.

It's not just work. Yes, I have a less-than-stellar work situation at the moment. That's life and there is nothing I can do about it, unfortunately. But I feel like there is too much to do outside of work as well. Some of it is fun, for sure. But there is just no balance. I knew on Monday night I should probably get a ton of sh*t done -- errands, cleaning, whatever -- because I would have no other time for at least a week or so to do it. But I decided to have a glass or two (ok, it was definitely at least two) of wine with L and lounge on the couch and watch TV.

And it felt fabulous.

I felt relaxed, I laughed, I enjoyed catching up with her. I felt closer to feeling like myself than I have in awhile. And I want so much to feel like that every day.

But I feel like my mind is just racing all the time now -- at work, not at work, just ALL. The. Time.

I have lists and more lists. I have things scheduled out so much I can't see straight. I find myself having to figure out what gifts I might need to buy or outfits I might need to have cleaned/altered/purchased for weddings/showers/birthdays/events two months from now, because if I don't get them squeezed in during any free hour or two I might have now, then it simply won't get done in time.

I feel like I am not enjoying my present. I'm fretting over all that I didn't get done yesterday and strategizing what needs to get done before tomorrow. I'm making lists in my head. I'm thinking about where I need to be and where I'll be staying for the night three days from now, and planning my mode of transportation and bag I need to pack accordingly.

I used to allow myself to "plan enough so that I could feel free to be spontaneous", if that makes sense. Make sure I had a couple extra days worth of work clothes at MVP's house, so if I wanted to stay with him one night after work, I could go there no problem. Take care of laundry or groceries on a "free" night so I didn't feel like it HAD to be done on another night because there was no more clean underwear and only cereal to eat for dinner.

So my question bloggy friends is what do you do? I try to say NO to as much as I can, believe me I do. But what do you do after that? When you are trying to keep up with it all and it feels like too damn much. When all you want to do is feel more like yourself.

What do you do?